Bloomberg News used NASA’s Black Marble satellite data, which captures daily nighttime light emissions at a 500-meter resolution, to create a series of visualizations tracking changes in urban lighting across Ukraine during the war. One visualization compares average light intensity in Kharkiv between autumn 2021 and autumn 2024 and shows a 94 percent drop, reflecting the extent of electricity loss. To understand what drove such a steep decline, Bloomberg overlaid the lighting data with maps of energy infrastructure and confirmed strike locations. The analysis found that nearly 38 percent of Kharkiv’s power stations and 17 percent of substations were located within 200 meters of confirmed damage, helping explain the scale and concentration of the city’s blackout.
Visualizing Effects of Wartime Destruction on Ukranian Energy Grids
previous post
